Black Box

Yasamin is probably gone. But it's been weeks since I was last able to properly communicate. It all went wrong on the night I went to find Penny. There was a creature standing amongst the trees, I swear it, though most here would deny it or call me mad to say such a thing. Still, it stood there, unnaturally blending its aberrant form into the treescape, its faceless eyes watching me blankly, ribbons of black violet drifting as a web in the wind. I was so distracted, and fell to the ground, injuring my knee. I was taken to the Doctor's, where he proscribed me medication that did me no end of bad. I was plagued by visions, ersatz dreams of all shapes and colours. It's so difficult to remember now, but I can still see a putrid forest as I close my eyes; writhing beasts bubbling through the darkness; an empty throne on a pedestal, high above a sea of fiery destruction; Penny, with her eyes put out; my darling wife, drowning in rising waters.

My dear wife...

And all the time the muted real world twittered on, and a high flute-like song pierced my head and stopped me from communicating properly. I refused the medication to clear my head, and managed to crawl out of my room for a glass of water. Penny, Lucy and Tom were in the front room, all three playing a brightly coloured game and laughing. It is no wonder we humans are so easily entangled in villainy; evil does so well at wearing bright masks and smiling. This would have been Monday. I tried to call Yasamin, but the phones weren't working. I went to the train station for a bit, still in my pajamas and quite a sight, but I didn't want Lucy looking after Pen, not after the warnings I had heard. I was pressganged back into my bed, to taking another round of medicine.

I awoke on the Tuesday with a ringing headache, and the newfound realization that Yasamin would be better off in London; that was the day I managed to attempt to get a message across to Yasamin. My first was "Don't come back" but the moment I attempted to post it, the internet went down. My next few messages were equally clear, and equally hidden from sight.

I dabbled in madness then, knowing that a shallow code and faking madness were my only chances of getting any message to Yasamin. I sent my first out on Monday, in an attempt to also get out some information about the local legends; both were important. Both still are. I'm still hazy in the head from those frantic days, but there are still moments that stick out in my mind. I cannot tell what was real and what were hallucinations, cannot separate the "stuff" from the "nonsense" one might say. I had another appointment with the town Doctor on Thursday, and left Penny in the care of Yasamin's parents. I should never have associated myself with them so; I should never have endangered them so. I pray for them.

I walked to pick up Lucy, and found the house with all the doors open and banging in the wind. The house itself was empty. Penny and Tom were playing out back, quite innocently, ignoring the path of black ichor that was burning into the grass. It stank of burning flesh and oil. I told the children to go inside and lock the doors until I returned. Then I walked along into the forest, following the blackened path. The trees had withered slightly at the touch of the ooze, and the grass beneath it was dead. The path led deep into the woods, towards the circles, and suddenly I was terrified at what I might find. I wasn't led directly to the circles; no, I was led to a grand oak, ancient and massive. The trees beauty was marred by death.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I ask the Lord my soul to keep, and if I should die before I wake, I ask the Lord my soul to take. Amen.

Pray for them, if you will; Yasamin's dear parents were torn to pieces in ways too ghastly for myself to describe. I have no words for what was done to them. The villagers had words, though; celebratory ones, as they danced around the tree, hanging bloody garlands around each others necks and laughing giddily. It was a damned village fete to them. I hobbled as best I could back to the house, and tried to call 999; I told them there had been a murder, and directed them to the tree. They laughed at me, and told me that it was normal. I took Tom and Penny back to the house, and Tom fretted and worried the entire time. Penny was nonplussed, almost cheerful. I fear that I have lost her.

Our doors have been locked. We've been hiding. But our time is up; the villagers have called the Police, and pinned the murders of Yasamin's parents and the disappearance of Yasamin on me. It was easy enough to frame me as a mad goat, I expect. They will be bringing a ram to the door soon. I am most likely going to be arrested; I don't know what will happen to Penny, or to Tom. I will... try and encourage them to escape this town, but Penny won't leave, she likes it here. Honestly, neither of them would survive that route either. After what I've seen here, though, I don't want them to stay in this village.

I'll pray.

I don't know what good it will do, but I still have some faith. Surely I do.

Yasamin, working from a coffeeshop. I'm not in Malkirk, the entire town's been cut off. Trying desperately to get in contact with Ed, or my family, or someone-- saw the poems. He's trying to warn me off. Something to do with the stones. I have to catch up with him. The roads and phonelines are down, and none of the cops I've spoken to have been particularly helpful. I'm sickened by it all. There are people over there aren't there?

I'm going to cut across the mountains. I know them pretty well, I've been walking about them all year, and I'm worried as anything. Just let them be okay...

So I'll try and check in when I'm safe. But I might not be. Let's set a 24 hour limit on silence, shall we?

Jive

I'm going back to Malkirk today, and I don't want to go. Devilish or not, I hate that town. But I have to go back for my family, and Ed and Penny. Their my family too. Maybe I can convince some of them to move down here. I'm sure Ed wouldn't mind, he paid for my hotel down here in the first place. But yeah, I'll have to maintain radio silence on the train.

I'll admit that I'm worried though. Ed said he'd post on the blog as soon as he was feeling better, and he hasn't posted anything. Then, the blog hasn't posted any of my posts either. So I don't know what's going on there. I guess the same thing's been happening to both of us. There's something weird going on, I swear.

oh this is Yasamin again, in case you couldn't tell.

I hope everyone's okay.

Rashness

The Maid stumbled to the stones at dawn,
Unimportant to the fae was she,
They laughed and with their devil spawn,
Taunted the Maid in glee,
She stood up to them 'til early morn,
And then she tried to flee,
The poor lost lamb, the taunted fawn,
Hid in the roots of a tree,
Then the tree moved, and she was gone,
To hell for eternitie,

And the Fae gloated then on,
"BACK to hell," They said, "She's borne!"

Thoughtlessness

The Priest came to the stones one night,
His cross held before his eyes,
He though he was protected by the light,
But couldn't see through the lies,
He tried to do what was right,
But found, to his surprise,
That the light was without sight,
As fae came from the skies,
And he was cursed with unholy blight,
An attempt to debaptize;

So he walked to them without a fight,
"Sprite, come," They say, "COME sprite."

Hot Air

Yasamin, again. I tried to post on Monday, but it didn't work. I called my computer and internet providers, and the blogger people, but none of them could help me. I didn't know anyone else in London, apart from Jean, and she's mental. Still, I couldn't think of anything else.

So I went over to her apartment, rapped on her door, and explained my problem. She asked if my fingers tingled after I'd typed and some other weird questions. I answered them, and then she said that my posts were in a bubble of time. I turned to leave, and she stopped me.

"Basically," She said, "Someone doesn't want you to communicate with the folks and Malkirk. Which is odd, because you haven't learned anything that you don't already know, apart from a few names. Like Sl&ampmovedperminantlyerror21end/er. But I don't think they could do something so specific with a virus. Unless it could be done, which would explain a lot. In either case, the service'll probably go back up when you get back to Malkirk."

Then she talked more stuff, like conspiracy stuff at me, and I was confused, and didn't really want to pay attention to it. She told me to burn down the Church.

I don't know what's going on.

Senselessness

I never told you about the Circles, now did I? It's a story in three parts; the Princess, the Priest, and the Maid.

The Princess reached the stones that day,
She heard the King's voice singing,
She was young, just finding her way,
And her ears grew to their ringing,
She travelled the forest by foot and sleigh,
To find the bells a-bringing
All manner of monster and beast and fey
To the place where the stones were springing,

"Oh Princess, come to us," They say,
"Don't stray," say, "DON'T stray."

Gear

I met with the girl on Monday, at her workplace. She gave an address. Small apartment, loads of books and empty beer bottles. Honestly, whoever this chick is, she's a mess.

The apartment smelled like alcohol. We sat at a bunch of boxes of books that served as a table. I recorded the conversation, I figured that at some point we might want to refer back to it?

"What's going on?" I asked her.

She laughed, "Straight to the point, eh? You live in a cursed town, it's possessed. The, heh, 'Coptic' Church doesn't worship any god."

"Devil worshippers? Really?"

"Heh. No, worse. Worse than that by far. Worse than Scientologists even. None of that exists. This creature they worship has many names, though I like to call it "the Gentleman." I don't know what it is, nobody does, not even the bloody experts-- don't matter what they say. It's an old god, it's an ancient monster, it's the very essence of nothing, it's the anti-life; the only true god that there is. He's either been here forever or since 2007. Could be our fault or part of the universe, we don't know. Sometimes he kills people. Sometimes he just watches them go mad. He can't speak, but he sings," She took out a cigarette at this point, and lit it. I coughed, and she ignored me. There was a long silence, "The Gentleman-- the Sl&nspnowrap/noreturn;kgend<i>ercritical-- is an unstoppable beast of contradictions, and even if you think he didn't for you, he always wins.

"Are you crazy? This is--"

"Nuts? Bullshit? Mad? Of course it is. The world is built on madness. I tried to fight it, I really did. It doesn't work."

"Is that why you punched Lucy?"

"She deserves worse, knowing what she does to her kids. She deserves worse." She seemed to be trying to scare me at this point, and I wasn't letting it happen.

"More conspiracies? Really."

"Yes."

"Well, thanks for your help," I lied. Seriously, she was pissing me off! What was I supposed to do? I asked her.

She just said "Run. Run or die."

"You're not running," I said.

"He was never interested in me properly. Though he's waiting. Getting closer every day. It's not going to be soon, but I'll wait my death with baited breath. I don't even matter anyway, and it was stupid for me to ever think I did."

I thanked her for her time and left. I'm just more confused now. The next train up to Malkirk is next Monday, something went wrong with the tracks. I'll go back then, I suppose, though I don't really understand what I'm supposed to do any more...

Luggage

I'm in London, and it's late. Oh, Yasamin here, and writing. I only left town yesterday-- Mr. Edward is sickly, and the pain medications he's on have made him a little out of it. Lucy said she'd keep an eye on him and Penny, but I'm still worried. The roads are still all down, so I caught a train. The train journey seemed to be a lot longer than it needed to be.

This last week has been really difficult. Mr. Edward mostly seems fine-ish, but he's very distracted, occasionally babbly but mostly quiet. And then Penny just seems completely oblivious to it all. I've been over there a lot, because I really do like them, so it's just been as a friend, not been getting paid for it. Anyway, when Ed's been talking, it's like he's talking to someone else. I think it's his wife. By the sounds of it, it's mostly stuff about his time when he was a missionary with the Quakers or something. And there was some arguing with another man, Mr. Green I think. I'm trying to write everything down here so I can remember. I didn't think it was important earlier this week, but now that I'm away from the house, I figure almost everything ties into everything else somehow, right?

So I'm going to go talk to Jeanne tomorrow. She'll be able to help.

I like London quite a lot. I almost don't want to go back home.

Job

Yasamin here. We spent the last few hours looking in the woods for Pen. Lucy showed up at Ed's door crying and trailing apologies, and Ed leapt into action with a speed I would never have predicted from the old man. We found Pen halfway up a cliff face, and we were going to get the firemen to come get her down with a ladder, but Ed was already climbing up. It was like that thing where mothers get bear strength and the like. So he carefully helped her down, but once he saw she was safe he collapsed and fell down the cliff and landed on his dodgy knee. Um. He was pretty badly hurt, but we couldn't get him to the hospital the next town over because the roads were closed this weekend-- the only way in or out of the town is by the train station, and there weren't any running. So we took Ed over to the town Doctors. He's there right now. I'm at his house, with Pen and young Tom. Penny doesn't seem very traumatized by her adventure. She had a hot chocolate and went right to bed. Apparently she wanted to find a friend she had met in the woods. I'm going to travel down to London to talk to the... lady that Ed had an encounter with.

It's been a long day.

Impedimenta

It's a sad fact of life that once you get to a certain age, you lose more than you gain. I received word today that an old friend of mine, Marcus Prendergast, died a few weeks ago. It was apparently suicide. I got a letter from his estate today, along with a photo of the two of us at a conference in the United States and a bound collection of my poetry, apparently bequeathed by him to me. The letter enclosed also said that there was an additional package that will be delivered next week. Marcus was a good man, and a clever one; I wish we could have communicated that more often. I hope his soul is where it needs to be.

Yasamin was caught spying on the hiking group. She says they believed that she happened to be taking a walk at the same time as the hike, but I'm not so sure. Nothing suspicious happened. I'm beginning to question my sources. Yasamin wants to talk to 'Jeanne' herself, so I'm paying for her to go down to London. I have the money for it, and I don't want to leave Penny by herself. It's all so very troubling. I'm honestly unsure as to whether I should even be sending her to school-- on top of my suspicions, her behaviour has descended back into the erratic. I'm jus


My apologies, Pen has gone missing, will write mroe later